CASSIAR

CASSIAR
Is a ghost town located in the Cassiar Mountains of northwestern British Columbia. It was a small, one-industry, company-owned mining town that was home to a asbestos mine, that was unexpectedly forced to close in March of 1992 after 40 years of operation, taking the entire town of Cassiar with it. The closure was the reason of diminished demand of asbestos and expensive complications from converting from an open-pit mine to an underground mine. Before its downfall, the community of Cassiar was once home to 1,500 people and had a school, a bank, supermarket, grocery store, liquor store, 2 churches, a Radio Shack electronics store, a small hospital, hockey arena, a theatre, a swimming pool, and a recreational center. Today, the streets are bare and empty and flowers are blooming of where the buildings once stood. The houses were auctioned off, bulldozed or burned to the ground. To approach Cassiar, hang a left off of the Stewart-Cassiar Highway (Highway #37) and head 16 kilometers down Cassiar Spur Road and past a few old cabins, do not expect any services. The meaning of Cassiar comes from the Kaska Indian Word for McDame Creek (a tributary of Dease River).